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Title: Caught Between Two Lovers
Author: Pattyanne
snapkik@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Feedback: Yeah, lot's of it
Summary: Set in early season 2, this
is a retelling of Spike and Buffy's first
meeting. For the purposes of the story,
Angel does not exist and Spike is a
little differeent.....


Part Fifteen...

The Dance



~~~~~~~~~~
"Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared 'neath the stars above
For a moment, all the world was right
How could I know that you'd ever say goodbye"
~~~~~~~~~~



Buffy's life officially fell apart on the day Joyce Summers
returned from New York.

She had spent more than a few sleepless hours trying
to come up with a way to introduce William to her mother.
She'd considered and rejected several different scenarios
based on her "I met him at school" platform. That was going
to be difficult to pull off, because he really didn't have any-
thing in common with the boys she usually dated.

Buffy couldn't say he was a student, because he simply
looked too old for it. And if she said he was a teacher,
her mother would no doubt have him arrested. An older
brother of a school friend would be too difficult to back up,
since none of her friends knew he existed at this point.

In the end, she decided to tell her mother a carefully
edited and selective version of the truth, and hope she
wouldn't be too freaked when Buffy told her he was only
23.

The airport limo dropped Joyce off at the house at
5:30. After a suitably mushy homecoming, Buffy told
her mom that she had made a date for that evening before
she knew that Joyce would be coming home that day.

Joyce was suffering from a monstrous case of jet lag, and
she encouraged Buffy not to break the date on her account,
because all she planned to do that night was take a hot
bath, then crawl into bed and sleep for three days.

Sunset came and went, with no sign of William. Joyce
stayed awake as long as she could, but threw in the
towel at 9:00, and went to bed.

Buffy kissed her mother goodnight, then stationed her-
self on the sofa, trying to fight off the fear induced
nausea churning in the bottom of her stomach.

At midnight, she finally accepted the fact that he wasn't
coming and went to bed.

She lay awake most of the night, trying to come up with
a plausible reason for William's non-appearance.

It was completely unlike him not to show up when he'd
promised to, and certainly if he couldn't show, he would
have called her. Only something serious could have
kept him from contacting her, and it terrified her to think
of all the possibilities.

Perhaps he had been badly injured in some way, badly
enough to harm a vampire. Or maybe, Drusilla had found
out about his "marriage" and had killed him in a jealous
rage.

The only other thing she could come up with was the
worst of all...maybe he was finally tired of her, and had
returned to his former mate.

Towards dawn, she finally fell asleep, but it was a thin
and restless sleep and it didn't refresh her in any way.

As she sat at the kitchen table, forcing herself to eat
a bowl of cereal, she considered going to look for him,
before she remembered that she had no idea where he
lived.

The weekend crawled by, and Monday morning found her
all cried out. She went to school, drifting through her
classes with depressed disinterest. After the final bell,
she presented herself in the library for some hand to
hand training, keeping a carefully phony facade of hap-
piness and willingness to learn.

When they were finished, she turned down Willow and
Xander's offer of some quality time at the Bronze, and
ran home.

Before she went into the house, she stopped at the curb
and opened the mailbox. The only thing it contained was an
envelope addressed to her.

With shaking hands, she removed it from the box and
studied it. It was a thick, cream colored vellum envelope,
and it looked very expensive. Her name was written in an
elegantly old fashioned style.

Buffy didn't want to open it. She knew that whatever was
inside the envelope was something she wouldn't want to
know about. Her palms became sweaty and she felt a
large lump forming in her throat as she plodded upstairs to
her bedroom.

Locking the door, she sat down on the bed and slid her
finger between the flap and the back of the envelope. Her
movements were slow and deliberate, and she wished
desperately that something would happen right now to
keep her from going any further. She wanted the phone to
ring, or someone to knock on the front door...anything, as
long as she could put this off.

A half an hour later, she reached in and extracted a single
sheet of paper, folded over. It was of the same beautiful
parchment as the envelope and she could see the swirls
and loops of her name etched in black ink.

Buffy took a deep breath and unfolded the paper.



~~~~~~~~~~
"And now, I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end
The way it all would go..."
~~~~~~~~~~


As she read the letter, tears formed in her eyes. A dull
ache began somewhere in the region where she judged
her heart to be.



Dearest Buffy...

Before you begin reading this, I want you
to know that what I'm about to tell you has
nothing to do with my feelings for you, or
about you being the slayer.

You're very beautiful and very sweet, and the
time that we've spent together has been all
a man could want or ask for in life. You've
been the sunshine in my eternal darkness,
sweetheart, and I will always treasure you for
it. I'm already miles away from you, and my
arms ache to hold you and never let go.

But, darling, I have responsibilities that I can't
set aside. Someone is counting on me, so I
have to go and deal with the realities of it.

I love you so much, Buffy, and I wish you
a long and happy life. Please be careful in
everything you do. I don't want to think of a
world without you in it. I want you to be safe
and warm and cared for. I only wish that I could
be the man who keeps you that way forever.

I'm so sorry that I have to tell you this in a letter,
but I know that if I were to see you...to look into
your lovely eyes...I wouldn't have the strength or
the will to go.

I love you, sweetheart. I love you very much. Always
remember that. I will love you until the day I no longer
exist on this planet, and even beyond that as well.

Take care of yourself, my love. Live...for me.

All my love forever,
William




Buffy had believed that she had no more tears left
inside of her.

She knew now that she'd been horribly wrong.

Dropping the letter on the bed, she rolled over and
buried her face in her pillow and cried harsh, pain-
ful tears that made her chest ache and her throat
raw.

She cried for hours...for days...forever....



~~~~~~~~~~
"And now, I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end
The way it all would go

Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance..."
~~~~~~~~~~



TBC.....

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